Senior Manager, Consumer Insights - Athleta

About the RoleThe Consumer Insights function at Gap Inc. is critical in driving customer centricity and ensuring the success and relevance of our businesses. Through rigorous analyses, creative thinking, and deep partnership with the business, we develop a customer-focused strategic direction for our company. Insights are used across our portfolio of brands, and in various functions, such as product development and customer service.What You'll Do

This role will serve as the Athleta brand-embedded Consumer Insights leader. As a Senior Manager on the Athleta Consumer Insights team, you are responsible for developing and owning the brand learning agenda and research roadmap which you and your team will execute against. You independently lead research planning and execution and deliver data-based insights that clearly drive action. You have an excellent understanding of standard research methodologies and are a trusted thought partner by your stakeholders, sought after for your point of view given your expertise in research. You are comfortable with ambiguous questions and creating a business-oriented research plan to answer them. You are an excellent presenter and are comfortable presenting in front of senior leadership. You are also an experienced people leader and know how to coach your team to help them grow in their career.  

Research/Business Management  

• Initiate and maintain the annual research roadmaps based on business priorities through proactive meetings with LT, stakeholders and your leader that then drive your priorities, inclusive of ways to further evangelize the customer and insights throughout the org (ie Townhall, Customer Lunch & Learns, etc). 
• Independently manage and lead multiple projects simultaneously with seamless execution, ensuring high quality of work and close collaboration with stakeholders and your leader/team as support. 
• Ability to lead and manage large strategic studies (like segmentation, brand equity) where you need to gain buy-in and manage many stakeholders 
• Enable a consumer-centric organization through the synthesis and communication of various insights resources, inclusive of but not limited to: data and analytics, consumer macro needs and trends, tracking (NPS), social insights, industry reports and more. 
• Manage budget and timelines for your projects and work with leader to ensure it fits into the broader brand/CI budget  
• Be seen as a trusted leader and thought partner with the ability to influence strategy and processes through a consumer lens  
• Manage one team member workload and support them in their career growth through coaching and proactive feedback on their work 

Research Project Planning and Execution  

Scoping 

• Ability to independently translate ambiguous business strategies and questions into an initial research plan that aligns with roadmap and is then shared for refinement (with leader and stakeholders)  
• Own the scheduling and conduct a kickoff meeting including an agenda to discuss research objectives, hypotheses, business priority, timing and budget)  
• Proactive collaboration with leader to align on budget and priority as well as thought-partnership on approach.  

Research Execution:  

• Planning: Creation of project timeline with key milestone dates (kick off, draft guide/survey, programming, field, report draft, shareout) 
• Execution: Development of research stimuli (discussion guide, survey), including meeting with business partners to take them through. 
• Reporting: Create and deliver high quality reports leveraging insights to offer strategic recommendations that are actionable by the business 

Vendors: Experience working with and managing third party vendors end-to-end on projects 

• Conduct thorough RFP to ensure vendor’s capabilities meet research and business needs 
• Create and manage necessary legal documents (e.g. NDA, SOW, etc) 
• Proactive collaboration with vendor to ensure timeline and budget stay adhered to 
• Active participation in research execution

Relationship Building  

• Be a trusted and valued strategic partner to leadership and your stakeholders, meeting regularly to hear their needs and understand business priorities 
• Seek out and build strong relationships with cross-functional teams who rely on your insights to do their job (e.g., strategy, marketing, merchandising, PDM, etc.) including internal CI team stakeholders.  
• Maintains a growth mindset by being open to feedback and is accountable for mistakes (and learns from them)  
• Proactively seek out opportunities to collaborate and work with peers on the CI team to promote learning and growth (as a team and self)  

Who You Are

• Substantial professional experience in Marketing Research, Consumer Insights, and/ or Strategy/Strategic Management consulting (10+ years)  
• Proven record of delivering consumer-led business outcomes  
• Strategic thinker who approaches challenges with a “possibilities and learning” mindset  
• Ability to story tell & present findings making complex insights simple. 
• Strong presentation skills including building final deliverables 
• Enjoys learning from and teaching others  
• Trusted by peers and business partners who enjoy working with you  
• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills.  
• Exceptional knowledge and skill with Microsoft Office tools (i.e., Excel, PowerPoint, etc.)